Waters Corporation has inaugurated the Maastricht MultiModal Molecular Imaging (M4I) Institute in the Netherlands into its Centers of Innovation (COI) Program. Under the direction of Ron Heeren, the institute conducts research into applications for mass spectrometry in three main areas: oncology, neurology and cardiovascular medicine.

“In 2014, we welcomed Ron Heeren in Maastricht to become our university professor. The economy of Limburg benefits greatly from his innovative impulses to scientific developments and Prof. Heeren’s research group is of paramount importance for the growth and development of UM research,” said. Martin Paul, president of Maastricht University. “The M4I Institute, consisting of Heeren’s mass spectrometry lab and Peter Peters’s nanoscopy lab, is already one of the largest imaging centres in Europe. M4I expands already established imaging infrastructures such as Brains Unlimited, and improves Maastricht’s position as an international centre of excellence for human and molecular imaging even further.”

“Prof. Heeren is a true visionary and we are extremely pleased to welcome him into our COI Program,” said Eric Fotheringham, director of the Waters Centers of Innovation Program. “The fantastic work being done by the MultiModal Molecular Imaging Institute with the help of imaging mass spectrometry gives me a lot of optimism about medical science and the future of health care.”

For its research, the Institute employs three forms of mass spectrometry – mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) coupled with ion mobility and high spectral mass resolution. The scope of Heeren’s use of imaging mass spectrometry is wide-ranging. He uses it to determine where molecules of all types – lipids, intact proteins, endogenous peptides, drug metabolites – are localized within a tissue sample, and which are found in high concentrations and which are not. This is all in an effort to improve the understanding of disease progression and regression.